


When Gangster Bosses Ruled the City

by neveralarch



Category: Tintin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/pseuds/neveralarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1931 Chicago is a dirty place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Gangster Bosses Ruled the City

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Iambic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/gifts).



> (Very) loosely based on Tintin in America.

The streets of Chicago aren't kind to a young European such as myself. The mobsters of Chicago are also unkind, especially to reporters who're chasing after them for a story.

It wasn't helping that I was trying to get rid of organized crime, not just cover it. I'd already taken down a couple of the bosses, but you can't just stroll in to a new town and expect to clean it up in a few days.

It'd take me a week, at least.

I turned my collar up against the rain and stepped out from the awning I'd been sheltering under. My dog followed me, looking like a cross between a drowned rat and a drowned Scotsman. Something about the whiskers, and the fact that he was sopping wet. He glared at me, but I ignored it - we had a ways to go to our hotel, and I couldn't trust the cabbies.

A black car pulled up alongside me, idling along to keep pace. The window of the back seat rolled down with a squeak and I tensed, looking for the muzzle of a gun.

"My dear chap!" said a man with a bristling moustache.

The window of the driver's side rolled down.

"To be precise: Chap, my dear!" said a man with a nearly identical bristling moustache.

"Thomson and Thompson," I groaned. "What do you think you're doing here?"

"I'm Thompson, he's Thomson," said the first man. "Hurry, get in the car and we'll explain."

I didn't want to get in. For all I knew, they were still after me for that framed-up heroin bust. But they'd probably keep chasing me if I didn't take their ride, and it beat walking in the rain. I opened the door and stepped in, waiting to shut the door until Snowy had hopped inside.

"I don't want any trouble," I said. I thought it was best to get that out of the way, first.

"Oh, don't you?" Thomson laughed. "You have an odd way of showing it."

"Indeed," said Thompson. "Our superiors sent us here just because of all the trouble you've been making in Chicago."

"We weren't supposed to tell him that," snapped Thomson.

"Oh, sorry."

"Look," I said. It was better to stop them before they fell into one of their long, confusing back-and-forths. "Why don't you just tell me everything?"

"That will take some time," said Thomson, looking over his shoulder.

Thompson leant across and smiled over the handle of his umbrella.

"Why don't we stop and talk about it over a drink?"

That was a terrible idea. I was a marked man, and there wasn't a bar in the South Side that wasn't connected to the mob.

The dog looked up at me and growled. He wanted a drink, the damned alcoholic.

"All right," I said. "But it better be important."

I couldn't die tonight. I had a column to finish.


End file.
